Isaiah 58: 9c-12, John 4: 5-42
Wellsprings of Wisdom and Other Startling Truths
I don’t think it is possible to contribute to the present moment in any meaningful way while being wholly engulfed by it. It is only by stepping out of it, by taking a telescopic perspective, that we can then dip back in and do the work which our time asks of us. -Maria Popova, Brain Pickings
On our trip to Palestine a few weeks ago, we found ourselves at a Greek Orthodox Monastery in the city of Nablus (known as the ancient city of Sychar back in Jesus’ day). The church was built around the ancient well of Jacob from the OT. It is thought to be the well featured in our scripture text today about the Samaritan woman and Jesus.
Upon entering the cavernous Greek Orthodox church, we found ourselves climbing down into a crypt like area, and formed a circle around this well. One of our travelers volunteered to lower the bucket. I watched the pail go down and up several times because the rope hadn’t been unwound deep enough to actually touch the water — that stone well was so deep and echoed as the pail bounced against the sides. Once the bucket came up, we all dipped our cups in and took generous sips. It was cold and refreshing! Then, we read today’s passage from John.
Wells are a worthy metaphor for the spiritual journey through life. Its depths often fathomless and dark. But peering into the story, perhaps we can see our own lives and the face of our neighbors reflected there.
We then had some time to roam around and take in the gold leaf paintings, 40 years’ worth of iconography of biblical stories on the walls and ceilings. I learned that the Greek Orthodox Church claims the unnamed Samaritan woman at the well for their own, calling her Photini, meaning “Enlightened One”. She is revered as an apostle (and a martyr) and for bringing her whole community to,” Come and See!”.
After going to the Samaritan well, I stepped outside into the sunny courtyard, and noticed several of our Muslim travelers. They’d assembled on prayer rugs off to the side to say their noontime prayers. I sat on a stone bench out of sight and watched them pray as they bowed down to kiss the ground (dipping into the well of their own faith), the hum of Allah on their lips.
I felt in awe of their devotion and so impressed by the quiet ways they practiced this pillar of prayer– Wherever we were on our trip, whether at the airport, a holy site or in the desert, those practitioners of Islam, made a quiet exit from the rest of us to go offer their prayers to God.
No matter where we were on our journey, the Islamic call to prayer began the day- recited by the muezzin at 4:30 in the morning. Prayer, as you know, is one of the 5 pillars in Islam and pilgrims pray the daily hours five times a day according to their tradition. Just as Jewish believers pray three times a day. And monastics in some Christian traditions pray 6-7 times a day.
In her latest book, Holy Envy, Barbara Brown Taylor writes about the experience of teaching a course on World Religions. As an Episcopal priest and professor, she describes how she fell in love with aspects of each religion she taught from Islam to Buddhism to Hinduism, Daoism and others. And how it made her grapple with her own language of faith and doubt. BrownTaylor calls this experience of deep appreciation, “Holy envy” …I resonated with some of that holy “appreciation” myself after two weeks on the road with my friends from the Berlin Mosque.
“Religions”, Taylor says, “are treasure chests of stories, songs, rituals, and ways of life that have been handed down for millennia – not covered in dust but evolving all the way- so that each new generation has something to choose from when it is time to ask the big questions in life. Where did we come from? Why do bad things happen to good people? Who is my neighbor? Where do we go from here? No one should have to start from scratch with questions like these. Overhearing the answers of the world’s great religions can help anyone improve his or her own answers. Without a religion, these questions often do not get asked.” [1]
In the gospel narrative today from John, Jesus is resting at the well and sees the woman of Samaria approach, He asks her for a drink breaking with tradition and whatever arbitrary boundaries divided their communities. The well is the meeting place of the community.
Who knows why this Samaritan woman was at the well at noon filling her daily jog. It was not the typical communal time to go there. After Jesus’ request, the woman asked the open ended question, “How is it that you, a Jews ask me a woman of Samaria.?” (4.9)
With that exchange, they are off and running, back and forth across the well engaged in the longest conversation Jesus has with anyone in the gospels.
All we know from the text is that these two communities didn’t share things in common. And yet, in this holy conversation they’re sharing ideas about truth and God and even drinking from the same cup.
Where can I get some of this “living water”? She asks Jesus.
The unnamed woman at the well is changed by her encounter/ her conversation with Jesus. Her openness and vulnerability and willingness to listen and share herself opens up her whole world, and her community.
As we learn, she recognizes who Jesus is just as Jesus seems to see her for who she is, as the story of her life echoes off the stones of the well between them.
It is a healing moment. This person no longer defined by her history. And we bear witness to it. She has become someone new. In fact, we learn that she “leaves her water jar” and goes to share her experience. “Come and see someone who has told me about everything I’ve ever done.” (v. 29) she exclaims.
Of note here, is the collective response of her community. Living water isn’t just for one, but is meant for many. The townsfolk must have heard something in her testimony as they too come to follow Jesus and the circle widens. The impact of the conversation has a rippling effect like a pebble being dropped in the well spreading outward in concentric rings.
Then, Jesus is invited to stay by the Samaritan community and remains there for two days. Hospitality is a gift offered and received. The unnamed stranger becomes a vessel of life-giving change for others, differences and fear no longer keeping folks apart.
Isn’t that what love does? Love as the source of this “living water” (v)
What wells do you draw from, what echoes for you in this story?
What wisdom heals your soul, quenches your thirst?
Who are the faces of God reflected for you?
When we encounter the other, it can be transformative, call it a meet-up of grace. an Amazing Grace holding startling truths.
I was reminded of this when Paul and I saw the documentary about the twenty-nine-year-old Aretha Franklin called, Amazing Grace. Aretha is performing gospel songs in a black church with the Southern California Community Choir and an intense look on her face. Sweat pours down her cheeks, her profile lit up like the diamonds in her ears.
Watching it, I’m in that church pew with the crowd from Los Angeles. I’m singing Amazing Grace too, and waiting for Aretha to bring it home. I don’t know any of the other faces in the crowd except a few of The Rolling Stones are sitting in the back row. It’s 1973, it feels like a simpler time but we know better. I’ll admit to some Holy Gospel Church Envy as I watched and sang along.
Wouldn’t it be something if we all sought to teach ourselves and our children to have a healthy dose of holy envy? Sure, we visit our neighboring mosques and synagogues and are good neighbors with other houses of worship. We do have long and valued friendships and partnerships that do matter and do bridge difference.
But how deep do we go?
My friend, Zahir, the Imam from the House of Peace Mosque in Meriden can quote chapter and verse of our Bible and has a deep regard for our Jesus, whom all muslims understand to be a prophet. Can I do that with the Koran? No, I cannot. There’s a Tibetan Buddhist Temple in Middletown and a Hindu Temple Society there as well. Have you been to visit recently? Attended sabbath services recently in Chester at Congregation Beth Shalom?
At St Martin De Porres in New Haven on Dixwell Avenue there’s an incredible gospel service and a welcoming community. As does the racially diverse community Church of the City in New London. While we share the faith tradition of Christianity with these neighbors of color, we know that the phrase Martin Luther King made famous back in 1960 still holds true: “that Sunday at 11:00 is the most segregated hour in America.”[2]
I’m not saying don’t keep coming here to FCCOL on Sunday!!
I’m just saying as the prophet Isaiah’s “Breach-menders” we have so many opportunities to go to where the other prays and to keep inviting folks here. And if we want to change the way stranger-phobia continues to damage our society and tear at our cultural/social fabric, we need to go to where our neighbor lives and reach beyond our comfort levels, be curious and stay for a few days.
We must teach our children well the blessings of our neighbors’ treasure.
Yes, here at FCCOL we do practice what we believe and preach. Our partnerships in all kinds of places show that commitment.
But we are called to be curious, initiate new ways to sit with others for some holy conversations, to reach across difference–even just across the pews– to further peace building.
Brown Taylor again from her book on Holy Envy writes,
“However, you define the problematic present-day stranger–the religious stranger, the cultural stranger, (the undocumented stranger), the transgendered stranger, the homeless stranger–scripture’s wildly impractical solution is to love the stranger… as Christ in disguise.” (p111.)
“Wanna have a cup of coffee?” is for me always the best way to open a beginning with someone that I might not otherwise meet.
Just yesterday, I was reminded of the deep well of community and care that our church and the Shoreline Food pantry represents- Its not a one way encounters it’s a two-way experience where folks are known and included, where volunteers give in a myriad of ways to make a guests morning go smoothly. And so that no one who enters our doors leaves without a basket full.
While meetings continue about what shape the Food Pantry will take in the coming months, one thing is clear. Each Saturday, our church space becomes a place of home. I’d call it a Wellspring of Amazing Grace.
That’s what happens when we’re doing the work of well-being, of neighbor-love. What the apostle Paul in the early church days calls the practice of love that brings us “face to face” with God (Cor 13.12)
In this time of family separations, border walls and nationalistic fear-messaging,
In this time of church/synagogue/mosque attacks around the world,
In this time of racial division and injustice, what wells do we draw from?
Whatever your spiritual path of choice, whatever religious tradition or spirituality we call our own, the blessings of the well are gifts for the journey. They can help us to stand at the rim and find strength and refreshment for the Spirit-led journey-tasks before us.
When we come to it…
When we come to the wells that feed our humanity,
And the holy conversations that remind us of our shared divinity
Then all shall be made welcome and all of us of be made whole.
Namaste!Amen!
I don’t think it is possible to contribute to the present moment in any meaningful way while being wholly engulfed by it. It is only by stepping out of it, by taking a telescopic perspective, that we can then dip back in and do the work which our time asks of us. Maria Popova
[1] Barbara Brown Taylor, Holy Envy: Finding God in the Faith of Others, (2019).
[2] Martin Luther King, Jr., https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1q881g1L_d8